We paid for all our raiders plus the backup raiders we have for the 3 first raids. That equated to about 40k..... When I realized that, I told them to bring their own flasks for the last raid in that reset and from now on, they will have to supply themselves.

In Cata we had our raiders pay a monthly fee to cover both feasts and cauldrons but we don't have that now, due to the changes in both cooking and the removal of cauldrons.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect your raiders to fund themselves at this point. The first week yes but by now everyone should be revered with the Tillers and grow Spirit of Harmony. You get 3 Golden Lotus per 1 Spirit of Harmony and you also get some of the lesser Harmony when doing dailies. So it should be more than enough, even if you want to craft gear.

I managed to craft 2x chest pieces, gloves, leg enchants to the 5 raiders who needed it and 4 more for the AH. I'm still sitting at 6 Spirit of Harmony right now.

That said, I don't understand, why they removed cauldrons. Imo they should bring cauldrons back on a 2 hour duration, I don't understand why they nerfed the duration to 1 hour at the end of Cata either. It's not like there's not enough gold sinks already, don't make flasks yet another one.

or not even. When I raided with a top 25 US guild we always were so anxious to get in there week 1. that we usually pushed our 16 hour schedule to atleast 25+ not including the alt 10 mans we would form at like 2am after raids were done for the day .

I spend all my Spirits of Harmony on making the flasks for the raid (I'm the designated alchemist for that job). I don't have any other proper use for those things anyway. Using them on JC is just a waste.

We're levelling our druids for farming or have already finished doing so. And the people who have the time to do so, go ahead and farm.

Many are investing their Spirts of Harmony for additional lotuses for as long as they their crafts aren't needed by the raid and require the use of Spirits for that.

If I checked, I'd probably find people who are barely helping out at all, but I'm not bothering with that for as long as we have enough.

We're a 3-day raid, but are planning to extend to 4 days because there'll be so much to do what with heroic progress starting - so, even more need for lotus than originally planned... We think an additional day might really help with things because when HoF opens we'll be a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of bosses that we want to kill every week. But let's see how the first few heroic tries go and how quickly we can rekill the normal modes after that. You really need to get your shit together this time around and raid efficiently or else you'll not have enough time to do everything that you want to do.

If the Golden Lotus requirement isn't removed VERY quickly, I'm pretty sure a lot of guilds/raiders will sink or will surrender to buy money from gold farmers.
It just isn't fathomable that blizzard forces people to spend all their time farming mats individually. We're going bankrupt soon, and people are gonna /gquit because they'll lose all their gold for flasks and pots.

Everyone brings their own flasks. Feasts are provided by guild. Simple. We did it like that prior to cauldrons, and in the world where gold really isn't the issue (if you're a raider and have gold issue, you are doing something wrong) everyone can afford to have 3 flasks for one raid night (we raid 3 hours).

If the Golden Lotus requirement isn't removed VERY quickly, I'm pretty sure a lot of guilds/raiders will sink or will surrender to buy money from gold farmers.
It just isn't fathomable that blizzard forces people to spend all their time farming mats individually. We're going bankrupt soon, and people are gonna /gquit because they'll lose all their gold for flasks and pots.

Tilling doesn't take a lot of time. A few minutes (after you hit revered)/day gives at least 3 lotusses. If people prefer to fly around on a lvl 90 herbalist or spend their money on the herbs on the AH it's ok, but you shouldn't say that blizzard forces you to spend a boatload of time/gold on flasks.

It's the internet. You never know if people are either sarcastic or just bad.

Tilling doesn't take a lot of time. A few minutes (after you hit revered)/day gives at least 3 lotusses. If people prefer to fly around on a lvl 90 herbalist or spend their money on the herbs on the AH it's ok, but you shouldn't say that blizzard forces you to spend a boatload of time/gold on flasks.

I don't need 3 lotusses a day, I need at least 8.
8x6 days of raiding = 48 lotus/week
Not to mention the price of the required herb itself.

This is not achievable by any "normal" means unless you're unemployed or using a bot or buying gold from gold farmers.
I've got enough gold to sustain myself for 3 months but then I'll stop playing. I care more about my guild mates who have less than 50k gold on them, those are gonna burn out in less than a month.

Raiders always get loads of gold from selling epics and stuff on the AH.

use that to buy mats of people who farm them.

I thought there was the big backlash in Cata about wow being too easy and casual! now look at it. Raiders make gold, raiders spend gold on mats, non-raiders farm mats, as that carries on prices will drop and stabilise.

I'd do what people did in wrath or before, if you dont bring your own flask, you dont raid.

That said, if you are just learning a boss and not likely to down it, a flask may not be 100% necessary, have a few goes learning tactics andwhen you think you've got that down, flask up and try for the kill. may save a few flasks a week.

at the moment, people are providing their own flasks, however I am hoping that the trash in the up-coming raids will drop some sort of epics so that Gbank can sell them and go back to funding everything for the raiders.

I don't need 3 lotusses a day, I need at least 8.
8x6 days of raiding = 48 lotus/week
Not to mention the price of the required herb itself.

This is not achievable by any "normal" means unless you're unemployed or using a bot or buying gold from gold farmers.
I've got enough gold to sustain myself for 3 months but then I'll stop playing. I care more about my guild mates who have less than 50k gold on them, those are gonna burn out in less than a month.

if you raid 8 hours for 6 days a week you still need to be unemployed tbh

Honestly we have simply went for use if you are able to use it. And only provide flasks for the tanks and healers currently. The DPS are not required to use them while it hurst, paying for them if you are not some farm addict is almost impossible and the costs for about 12-16 hours raiding a week is insane currently.
Besides that a lot of people dont want to spend time at farming yet and a great part rather works to do all other factions first.

I am even doing together with the other tank pugs constantly just to get the flasks from the satchels.

My raid has a bring your own stuff policy. All money earned by selling raid-boe-drops is split equal to all raid members.

Originally Posted by Djouga

I don't need 3 lotusses a day, I need at least 8.
8x6 days of raiding = 48 lotus/week
Not to mention the price of the required herb itself.

This is not achievable by any "normal" means unless you're unemployed or using a bot or buying gold from gold farmers.
I've got enough gold to sustain myself for 3 months but then I'll stop playing. I care more about my guild mates who have less than 50k gold on them, those are gonna burn out in less than a month.

1. Roll two alts to 90
2. Make tillers revered (15 minutes per day and toon through dailies)
3. Get 1 more Lotus than you need
4. profit

getting your raiders to provide the lotus is an easy thing in theory as some will just use alts to herb or the ah. but providing 4 lotus a day should not be a problem especially as you probably don't raid every day anyway so can drop that daily amount down to what ever will cover your weeks needs.
and means you got procs to spare which the bank can use to turn on durability repairs during raids to cover all repairs or sell for feasts.

1. Bringing back the lotus. I know it's China themed, but the Cata version of this was much better. A little bit in every herb, rather than having to resort to herb ninja-ing and general asshole behaviour due to the guaranteed value of the gather-node.

2. The fact that guilds needed the perk for extra flasks from the cauldron. This made it hard for new guilds to raid and recruit. Removing cauldrons was a knee-jerk reaction, followed by them doing what should have been done and removing the perks.

Not having to play for hours every day just to be able to raid made Cata more enjoyable. Now I'm going to have to do all this crap just to be able to afford to raid at all. Add the food as well, and you're going to see a reduced raiding population overall. If Cata taught us anything, it's that when you make something quick and easy, you then can't make it hard or time consuming again without taking something away from somebody who no longer has time to do it.

I can never understand how people can't afford to supply themselves with flasks food pots for raids. I don't do any gathering, I make all my money on dailies and crafting and after buying the mats for flasks food and pots I'm still in the black. Though as a healer I only have to use 1 pot per fight rather than the 2 that the dps classes do.

Not having to play for hours every day just to be able to raid made Cata more enjoyable. Now I'm going to have to do all this crap just to be able to afford to raid at all. Add the food as well, and you're going to see a reduced raiding population overall. If Cata taught us anything, it's that when you make something quick and easy, you then can't make it hard or time consuming again without taking something away from somebody who no longer has time to do it.

I am guaranteed to get 1 spirit of harmony a day for less then 10 minutes work planting/harvesting.

Feasts are incredibly easy to make, our guild bank has ~300 and each raider has at least a stack on them.

Personal buff food is fairly easy as well, use 5 of the plots on your farm and you have all the veggies you need. a little fishing, a little killing and a daily(or turn in a stack of meat) and you have your food.

I much prefer this way to the flying around hoping to find twilight jasmine and highland guppies pools.